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As ever, trying in vain to match the pace of reporting finds (from charity shops and a trip to Mr Sifter's in this case) to the rate of actually finding them. It's November and Halloween's out of the way. Great, because whatever anyone else thinks, I have never personally found 'good versus evil' to be a particularly useful basis for discussing anything, and I'm not in any way fascinated by zombies or impressed by people dressed as horror surgeons, so instead, let's talk about this;

Black Sabbath - 'Black Sabbath's Greatest Hits' - I've heard a bit of love for the Sabbath on the board recently and it reminded me that my own way into the Sabs was via their compilation 'We Sold Our Souls For Rock'n'Roll' circa 1975 when a schoolmate bought it - whenever his folks went out to the Miner's Welfare of an evening, it would be on the stereo and wound up as loud as we dared. I own the CD, but perhaps a little shamefully no proper Sabbath albums on vinyl - and I still don't as this was all Mr Sifter had on offer the day I set out to amend this.

Nonetheless, I'm enjoying it, because despite my above protestations about 'good vs. evil', all the satanic baggage implied in a name like 'Black Sabbath' never gets in the way of what is just essentially a superb power trio fronted by a friendly loon who's voicing his anger at the world's injustices in the only way he knows how. The result is a sincere and instinctive, if somewhat naive, brand of political (small 'p') rock. That's how it sounded to me aged 14 and that's how it sounds now. It's appropriate that this album sleeve is a Breugel painting and not pentagrams or inverted crosses or any of that malarkey - Black Sabbath were rabble rousers, not devil worshippers, and I've never heard any band since that makes quite the same noise...so, what's their best album proper then?

Nancy Sinatra - 'How Does That Grab You Darling?' - Of course, it's just the retread of 'These Boots', but a bit cheekier and there's 'I Move Around', another Hazlewood winner on the flip.Chet Atkins - 'Boo Boo Stick Beat' +'From Nashville With Love' - 'Boo Boo Stick Beat' from 1959 sees Chet in some very early wah-wah pedal action and has an addictive percussive pattern that has already seen me play it out once or twice, the second single from 1966 is somewhat less innovative but OK...

Deep Purple - 'The Best Of Deep Purple' - ...which isn't of course the best of Deep Purple to anyone who's into Deep Purple, but since I don't include myself in that category, I thought I'd give it a go. Frankly, I always wondered why the Purps were ever as popular as they were - I always considered their music fairly leaden and pompous, and have always reserved a particular hatred of 'Child In Time' (Room 101 material) and the embarrassingly trite 'Smoke On The Water'. Since I couldn't actually remember ever hearing any of their Simper/Evans period stuff (hideously repackaged on this Scepter 'Citation' collection) I wondered if it contained any vestiges of the better stuff members were involved in pre-Purple. It's not as terrible as I thought it might be, 'Love Help Me' is a decent heavy pop song for example, but it seems, as with their later stuff, whenever Jon Lord and his unspeakably horrible organ get too involved in proceedings, the pomposimeter goes into the red and my interest wanes. If they'd split after two albums they might have been remembered as a sort of British Vanilla Fudge, which would have been better for all involved I reckon...

Cockney Rebel - 'Judy Teen' - EMI went a bit mad with niche marketing in the 70s didn't they? It wasn't necessarily that their bands were 'overproduced' (although they often were), but all of their product was just a bit too clinical, everyone from Mr Big to Pilot to Queen to Kate Bush hothoused in the EMI finishing school and designed cynically to occupy a certain space in relation to the competition and each other - it's the sort of insipid approach that somehow survived to the era of Radiohead, Coldplay and Keane and it shoots spontaneity stone dead on sight. A pity, since Steve Harley wrote some good songs, this being one of them, but even now there's an EMI focus group in my head reading formulae from a tickertape printout; '10% Sparks, 15% Roxy Music, 5% Mott The Hoople, 5% Rod Stewart...'

Chris Spedding - 'New Girl In The Neighbourhood' - Chris Spedding's 70's singles are always generally a safe punt and I know this one has blogger following legs, but it isn't really hitting the spot for me - a messy and uninspired welding together of Showaddywaddy and the Batman theme - what were they thinking?

...speaking of which....

Alvin Stardust - 'Growin' Up' - The simple rules of hitmaking - right singer, right song, right producer. So what went wrong here? I've used a stock photo as I edited my own into oblivion - but trust me, my copy's been nibbled by mice at some point. I don't want to hate on Bruce Springsteen, I sort of respect him, but his earlier overblown melodramas aren't really my cup of tea- I suppose, by 1977, the hits were drying up a bit both for Alvin and JK and this was a brave/desperate (delete as applicable) attempt to rehone their pop edge- in fairness, it's not a bad attempt at all really, with Alvin hamming up his US accent and handling the lyrical intricacies quite well - it's certainly better than Bowie's attempt - a strange episode all round...

Comment

Dug out during a 3 minute flying attack on a charity shop in Bridlington:

Penderecki - St Luke's Passion. Powerful, eerie, wild, choral music. I have had this as a box set version for nearly 25 years, dug out of the record shop that used to be in the covered market in Oxford. Possibly the first avant garde composer record I ever bought. But this has a slightly narrower spine, so this copy is going to get the nod. Al Caiola - Solid Gold Guitar. Twangtastic guitar instros. Original Cast - Flowers For Algernon. I have stopped buying musical soundtracks because I never like them. I couldn't resist dropping 25p on this, though, a musical version of the science fiction classic story of a man with an IQ of 63 who briefly becomes a genius. And his pet mouse. With Michael Crawford in the lead role. I don't think I can bear to actually play it, mind you. Starbuck - Moonlight Feels Right. Rather delightful 70s cheese rock.

Back home, the charity shops were also aligned with the stars:

Two volumes of top-notch Roulette fare on Major Minor BUDGET compilations. Some of my favourite music right here, The Cleftones, The Harptones, The Flamingoes... lovely.The Merseybeats - S/T. Ace release on Wing, I didn't really know anything beyond Mr Moonlight, but this is solid rocking stuff.Johnny Burnette - Dreamin'. And more early rocking sounds, who can resist "Oh no, not clown shoes / They mean I'm in for some mighty bad news"

Comment

Cockney Rebel - 'Judy Teen' - EMI went a bit mad with niche marketing in the 70s didn't they? It wasn't necessarily that their bands were 'overproduced' (although they often were), but all of their product was just a bit too clinical, everyone from Mr Big to Pilot to Queen to Kate Bush hothoused in the EMI finishing school and designed cynically to occupy a certain space in relation to the competition and each other

This is an interesting comment, I had always thought of Queen, Kate Bush and even Steve Harley to an extent as basically sui generis - each honing a unique style and approach. Are they really the product of a cynical 'finishing school' / production line approach? Tell me more, I'm interested to find out - who, where, how did they get squeezed out from the toothpaste factory?

Comment

This is an interesting comment, I had always thought of Queen, Kate Bush and even Steve Harley to an extent as basically sui generis - each honing a unique style and approach. Are they really the product of a cynical 'finishing school' / production line approach? Tell me more, I'm interested to find out - who, where, how did they get squeezed out from the toothpaste factory?

I'm with you on this Sonovox. All originals in my book. Specifically on the subject of Cockney Rebel, Steve Harley has always been his own man hasn't he? Their first album - Human Menagerie - is a very unique album I think. I love it to bits and it would accompany me to a desert island.

Comment

GC, re Black Sabbath lps, if you like that kind of thing, the first four or five will probably be all you need. Personally I only need the 1st (occasionally it has to be said). All the rest were given away when....you almost couldn't even "give them away".

Everyone tear down your own little wall
That keeps you from being a part of it all
Because you've got to be one with the one and all
You've just got to be close to it all

Comment

This is an interesting comment, I had always thought of Queen, Kate Bush and even Steve Harley to an extent as basically sui generis - each honing a unique style and approach. Are they really the product of a cynical 'finishing school' / production line approach? Tell me more, I'm interested to find out - who, where, how did they get squeezed out from the toothpaste factory?

I'm with you on this Sonovox. All originals in my book. Specifically on the subject of Cockney Rebel, Steve Harley has always been his own man hasn't he? Their first album - Human Menagerie - is a very unique album I think. I love it to bits and it would accompany me to a desert island.

Blimey, I wasn't expecting the Spanish inquisition....I'm not having a go at any of these artists, I like them myself - yes, there were distinctions between them musically but I suppose I still might question your 'sui generis' definition Sonovox - these were a core of artists that were signed to EMI in the mid 70's that to my mind were something of a genre in themselves. Typically middle class, well-educated, well funded, well connected and indulged by their record company and management to an extent that could only have been possible at the high watermark of the record industry. I used the terms 'hothoused' and 'finishing school' ('production line' was yours) to try to convey that impression, not entirely successfully it seems.

This phenomena was not all EMI's own work, but they were often savvy enough to position themselves to be the beneficiaries of the investments of others. Queen's first management company Trident bankrolled the unlimited studio time that the band were allowed at the then state of the art De Lane Lea Studios to hone their sound and Trident might have received more of the payback had EMI's crack legal team not extricated the band from the rather poor management deal they had signed, leaving band behoven to label and no doubt recouping their expenses (and then some) in the process.

At the height of the record industry, a company like EMI had seen the benefits of playing the long game (see The Beatles, Pink Floyd etc..) and I would argue that there is no better example of this than the career of Kate Bush. Having Dave Gilmour record and play on your demos and then hawk them around to the highest of the high was not, I suspect, the typical experience of young teenagers attempting to pursue a career in the music business at that time. See also funding and time off to study mime and dance with Lindsay Kemp for a couple of years, 'heavy people' reading you Gurdjieff and Jesu, as many former members of Pilot and Cockney Rebel and as much time as you like while spending your vast album recording budget - and only the obligation to tour once every 36 years to weigh you down.

Steve Harley, as you point out too Candiman, may have been something of an exception, but there's plenty of evidence to suggest that having given Cockney Rebel carte blanche on 'Human Menagerie', a rather dischuffed EMI leant very heavily on Harley to start producing some hits, 'Judy Teen' in fact being the first of them. Being the real Mr Big, EMI had the power to decide who would survive and who would be written off as a tax loss, and when the other Cockney Rebels demanded their own input to albums, the label quickly let them know where they stood - at the back of the studio playing along to Kate Bush...

EMI - an unlimited supply of money, cynical manoeuvres, business hardballing, Olivia Neutron Bombs, dwarves with trays full of cocaine on their heads, Sex Pistols, etc etc....and would I have had it any other way? Hell no, I love the music industry!

you can hear colours when they rhyme...

Comment

GC, re Black Sabbath lps, if you like that kind of thing, the first four or five will probably be all you need. Personally I only need the 1st (occasionally it has to be said). All the rest were given away when....you almost couldn't even "give them away".

Cheers Treeboy - that was pretty much the strategy I'd decided on - I've certainly no need for 'Gillan era' stuff or other aberrations - although is there a decent early live album, I wonder? I see myself as an occasional Sabbath user too but would like to explore beyond the obvious tracks a little - serves me right, should have bought them when you couldn't give them away - now I can't find them!

you can hear colours when they rhyme...

Comment

At the height of the record industry, a company like EMI had seen the benefits of playing the long game (see The Beatles, Pink Floyd etc..) and I would argue that there is no better example of this than the career of Kate Bush.

Thanks for the interesting perspective. I believe there is a bit of a leap between what you are describing - a record label investing in 'long game' and/or investing in upcoming talent - and what I perceived you were saying in terms of the deliberate overseeing of the direction / style of these artists to ensure they were targeted at specific audience niches. The fact that Kate Bush blew her advance on mime lessons seems more illustrative of her, um, orthogonality than it is of cunning svengali machinations.

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For what its worth, the Sabbath catalogue is rich and varied and doesn't end after the first four LPs, or first five, and can't be represented by just one LP, but it all depends on your perspective, of course, and your attitude towards heavy/hard rock. Some bands catalogue can be condensed down to just one or two LPs, but I'd suggest Sabbath don't fall into that category. And I'm not a fan of all of their records, by any means.

Dave Lee Roth, I Too Am Running With This Devil Of Which You Speak (sic)

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Isn't always the way, you go out not even looking for records and get your best finds, pulled a mono of this in excellent condition from a load of chuff in a chazza although I'll probably go back for the secret 'Masonic' gatefold souvenir thing I left behind (it looked mostly classical tunes anyway no secrets to be had). Discogs stock image used:

Comment

For what its worth, the Sabbath catalogue is rich and varied and doesn't end after the first four LPs, or first five, and can't be represented by just one LP, but it all depends on your perspective, of course, and your attitude towards heavy/hard rock. Some bands catalogue can be condensed down to just one or two LPs, but I'd suggest Sabbath don't fall into that category. And I'm not a fan of all of their records, by any means.

I'm sure you are right, I was just referring to the Greatest Hits tracks, which, if memory serves me right are mostly culled from that period. I remember a friend bringing Technical Ecstasy round when it was released. Something had changed to my ears. And I have to hold my hands up and say I haven't really listened to anything post that lp, so, I'm probably not the best qualified to give a definitive answer to the question by a long shot. First five were essential when I was a teenager.

Everyone tear down your own little wall
That keeps you from being a part of it all
Because you've got to be one with the one and all
You've just got to be close to it all